Why Did Tim Cook Talk At The Goldman Sachs Conference Anyway?

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Editor’s note: Howard Lindzon is co-founder and CEO of StockTwits, a social network for traders and investors to share real-time ideas and information. You can read his full bio here and find him on Twitter @howardlindzon.

Hold the iPhone. Stop the iTablets. Apple does care. They cared enough to show up at The Goldman Sachs Conference. I would argue they are caring in the wrong places. There is just NO good reason Tim Cook should be speaking at a Goldman Conference.

Goldman employees use Blackberries, not for any great reason. They hide their iPhones and iPads at home. The great Goldman Sachs firewall is not his friend. Good luck using Apple products and software or social sharing products at a financial firm.

Tim knows this because Steve Jobs used to send him to this conference. Today, Tim is the boss and does not need to be there. I think it would send a reasonable statement of leadership strength and style that Steve Jobs himself would understand.

The hedge funds in attendance today have not been Apple’s friend. They did not make Apple great. En masse, they just panicked and chased the stock at $500 (up to $700) per share. Now they want some cash back. They are led by David Einhorn, no doubt a genius hedge fund manager, who is now suing Apple for the cash.

I cringe when Wall Street gets catered to in the era of “Social Leverage.” No long-lasting bump comes from this conference for $AAPL (I do hope I am wrong).

I would argue that Tim would be better off asking Goldman questions: “What was your indictment-per-employee growth since 2008?”

Tim should be doing town hall meetings (terrible term, but you get my drift). Bloggers should be reporting on random sightings at Apple Genius Bars every weekend. Tim should be shaking hands and talking to the customers at ground level. Talking about the products and the way they manage the “globalness” of it all. We miss Steve, too…yada yada yada.

No wonder the stock is down $11 today (about $10 billion). The people are voting and leaning on the stock. Sure, we worry about anyone managing that amount of cash because the truth is, no one has ever done well managing that amount of cash.